Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday May 13, 2011 @06:17PM
from the somebody-just-got-fired dept.

fysdt writes "Details on the next Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3, have not simply leaked onto the internet; they have flooded. Among other details, a November 8 release date was mentioned. According to a report coming from Kotaku, what was just a month ago among the best kept secrets of the gaming industry — information on the next Call of Duty game — has now become anything but."

ok now that I got that out of the way, I'd like to say that modern warfare 1 was brilliant, MW2 was fun but IWnet ruined it for pc gaming and killed the idea of having a LANparty. Now because of activision's "bold moves" EA has followed suit and it's neigh-on impossible to find a modern AAA shooter that allows you to have YOUR OWN (aka not rented) dedicated servers. Seriously, pc gamers helped make these companies huge, and now we're treated like we dont matter. I'm prettymuch done with both EA and Activision (ok, blizzard is the exception).. Sigh, I just wanna have a 32 person LANPARTY.:\

They said that for Battlefield BC2 too ("dedicated servers are a given for the PC"), and see what you actually got: the "right" to rent a server at a few selected hosters, i.e. the right to pay their hosting bills for them. What a scam.

So please, don't buy the hype from DICE. We'll see how well they support the PC when they actually release it. And their reputation from the last release speaks against them.

I am sorry to tell you this but Starcraft 2 has no LAN mode and BNET 2.0 has screwed over more than its fair share of LAN tournament games and even screwed up a few games in the GSL, the biggest professionally produced Starcraft league.

As if that is not bad enough, I am pretty sure Diablo 3 will have no LAN either. Yay for Blizzard.

So a gaming league in Korea only allows games that don't have a LAN option? Perhaps Activision could instead release two versions of the game; one for casual gamers and a tournament version with LAN disabled. Then again, that would probably cost them more than just turning off LAN gaming for everyone and I don't expect more than the bare amount of customer care from Activision.

care to explain what's wrong with kespa? ok, it treats players like shit but:- it's Korean organization and doesn't have much weight outside SK- it was created mainly by hardware/IT companies as a marketing vehicle for their products so it does not operate at a gigantic profit- it singlehandedly created viable e-sport business around BroodWar and did all the required legwork to organize leagues, tournaments, teams and tv coverage- it knows its shit - on the other hand legit tournaments of SC2 (including bli

Know what you mean. Both myself and my brother have bought HL, HL2, CS, CS:Source, COD4, COD5, CODmw2 (my brother, not myself). Sad that in a house with a dozen PCs we can't play against each other with the latest games that... well frankly aren't as playable as CS. I don't even want a 32-person LAN party, just to play against friends and family. So glad I didn't bother wasting my money buying further into the COD franchise... now come on iD! What can I look forward to next?

pc gamers helped make these companies huge, and now we're treated like we dont matter

If it's any consolation, it's nothing personal. If they thought they could make more money by screwing over the console users and playing nice to PC users, they'd do that.

For that matter, if they could make more money making the game and then not selling it to anyone, maybe playing it in a window and letting gamers of all types press their faces against the glass but never touch a machine running it, they'd do that gleefully.

Cheaters. PCs, your own servers, these are all too vulnerable to cheaters and their hacks. Punk Buster used to do a pretty fair job back in the day, but when Valve and their completely POS STEAM set up with VAC...another POS, everything went right into the toilet. When the only way to compete is to use hacks yourself, the game is destroyed.

I am wanting to find a secure system to play in. I was hoping the PS3 would be free of these cheaters, but some punks have this burned down still. One of the posters is c

Cheaters. PCs, your own servers, these are all too vulnerable to cheaters and their hacks. Punk Buster used to do a pretty fair job back in the day, but when Valve and their completely POS STEAM set up with VAC...another POS, everything went right into the toilet. When the only way to compete is to use hacks yourself, the game is destroyed.

The proper way to prevent that is to distinguish between games playes via the matchmaking service and games played on ded servers like Blizzard used to do with Battle.net games vs. LAN games. The matchmaking mode can be made as secure as you like while the LAN/ded server mode allows people to cheat as much as they want. Everyone is happy.
Admittedly people will still try to cheat on the matchmaking service but you can ban their game's serial number if you find out. That would be a deterrent. You could even

It's gotten to the point that when a game does have dedicated servers, it often boasts about it in it's advertising. Sure I consider it a huge plus too, but it's sad that it's no longer expected from a FPS.

In campaign mode you mostly shoot at bad guys and hide behind convenient piles of things. There is a vague story however it won't get in the way of shooting things (don't worry). A new AI system has been designed that will ensure nothing out of the ordinary or interesting happens.

In multiplayer you mostly shoot at other people online and use cover to grief people repeatedly. It promises to have different maps than the previous release as well as a system that rewards 14 year old males dual auto-shotguns with continuous fire.

Wow! Sounds amazing! So fresh, original and innovative! But wait... How did you *know* all this...? You must be psychic! Can you use your awesome powers to determine if the palette will have three colours, four, or maybe even the legendary and much-rumoured five-colour palette?

How is this making slashdot's front page, yet we haven't heard a peep about Battlefield 3 yet, it's direct competitor who has been pounding their marketing war drum since at least October 2010? And arguably the better engine (not to mention an emphasis on PC localization).

The annual release makes the previous games obsolete. What I hate about this (in concept, mostly, since I don't play much COD/MW) is that a game has about one year of life left at launch. Then they launch a DLC map pack three months in. So that's $15 for maps that have nine months of life left. Then they release more DLC six months in, for another $15. So that's full $15 price for only half the original life span. Then (if I recall) they usually release a third and final map pack for these (the last three titles, at least). So another full $15 for only a quarter left of the life span.

You know these games are going to be popular. Just fucking make the content and release it up front. Charge another $45 for it and people are going to pay it, because then they can get a full year of content out of it (and those of us who grow tired of the same few maps in the first few months and stop playing out of sheer boredom, before the first map pack is even released will probably stick around longer).

Also, this was "leaked" in as much as someone said "let's get this out there and see people's reaction while there is still time to change some of our direction if there is a backlash".

Yeah, but you know... as much as I hate the DLC business model, particularly when the payee is Bobby "Money" Kotick, I kind of like the idea of new maps being added later in the lifecycle. I prefer that periodic refresh, over having them all available up-front and being overwhelmed. A big part of these games is learning the maps and figuring out strategies. If you start out with 20 maps, you'll end up playing each one half as often as if there were only 10 maps. I'd rather get good at the first 10, then

Ideally, the price of the DLC would be pro-rated or maps would always be free or they would prolong the life of the game. I mean, the latest version of Counter Strike has been going for almost eight years, now. The latest version of MW/COD has been going for six months and will mostly expire in about five months. (I know some will still play beyond that, but the majority of the community moves on).

Really, does the Slashdotter crowd care?
I assumed that Shub-Internet had risen and swallowed Activision and Infinity Ward whole. Are they still making games?
A pox on the lot of them.
Those jerks have proven conclusively that they hate us PC gamers, to the extent that most of the Infinity Ward employees quit and started a new company. I'll be waiting on that game, thanks.
Keep your money. While I'm at it, screw EA too!

No argument there. MW2 may be the best PC FPS available. "Most optimized" doesn't mean "good", though.
Yes, I think the lack of dedicated servers IS the shaft. My friends and I are still playing "cod: world at war", because we can control the server completely. Many hardcore multi-player FPS gamers aren't interested in anything without a fully dedicated server.
I'm not worried, though. This void will be filled by another company, soon enough. The market will provide.
-chris

Games like this tend to go gold/platinum merely because gamers (or more likely, their parents) "buy the game on spec" sheerly on the brand name. The game industry gets it and uses that to their advantage.
The trick is to discourage people from buying games like this so if you're a gamer and see someone who's making this decision and "just say no". Harder than it looks really...